


Caring For Your Computer

by summerartist



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:01:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24007789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerartist/pseuds/summerartist
Summary: The TARDIS takes care of the feverish Doctor in an unorthodox way.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 45





	Caring For Your Computer

The Doctor turned over, sweating and shivering. The hum of the TARDIS surrounded him and walled him in comfortingly. His eyes drifted open. The ceiling swam and capsized above him.

_Come along, Time Lord,_ his ship crooned at him.

“I love bananas,” he told her. His voice came out as a barely audible croak.

The TARDIS hummed her thanks for the information. She called to him again. He whined and turned over. He rolled onto the floor that was abruptly only a foot away from the bed. Funny how his bed kept sinking. Maybe he was on a ship. He liked ships. His head was pounding and his time sense reverberated almost painfully against his skull.

_Come here and I will make you feel better_ , his TARDIS called to him.

The Doctor waved an impatient hand at her, mentally stating that he didn’t have time for that nonsense. In the back of his mind he felt her presence emanating an almost menacing aura. If he did not listen to her then she was going to take matters into her own hands. He made a gurgling noise in his throat, guffawing in a quiet and drooly way at her perceived superiority.

Somewhere deep down he had the strangest feeling that he had made a monumental mistake. The solid floor vanished beneath him. The noise that pierced the air could not have come from him, because it sounded too high pitched and panicked. He was neither of these things. Well, he could do a decent treble if pressed…

He fell into a sort of compartmental space. It felt familiar to him, like he had conducted maintenance on it recently. Why was he doing maintenance in his sleep?

A cold gust of air blasted over him. He blinked, curling his legs up to his chest. The air was piped over him more slowly. The TARDIS continued peppering him with wind in the sterile chamber. He began to shiver again and he told her to stop.

_Just_ _for_ _a little longer, my love._

_How much longer?_ He pressed. He disliked it when she was being imprecise like this.

_As long as I need_ _to_ , she sang to him.

He nodded, despite her answer not making a lick of sense. He could barely keep track of how long she kept him in there shivering and dully contemplating his surroundings. It was dark here, but a cozy sort of dark like the kind nearest to candlelight.

_No Vash_ _t_ _a Nerada_ , he told her.

_No Vash_ _t_ _a Nerada_ , she agreed.

He got the impression of a rather aloof sniff at the mere suggestion of the species occupying her corridors. He gave a mental apology. He was rewarded by being scooped out of the temporary wind tunnel. His head was not pounding anymore, merely buzzing like a preoccupied bee.

_Sleep_ , she urged him.

He was feeling rather tired after his perceived punishment, and also a little hurt. He felt her firmness melt at his distress and all but cuddle his mind up to hers like a doting parent. She promised that he would understand this better in the morning. His body relaxed and he slumped back into bed.

* * *

“Rerouting the primary circuit to the subcentral core- transmitter- Ah!” The Doctor woke to a room full of fake dawn light and a bed that was a mess of damp sheets.

He rubbed at his eyes. He crinkled up his nose as he found sticky residue coating his upper torso. Sleeping normal human hours and sweating like a human...he could see why other species mistook him for their kind at times like these.

The TARDIS took mental stock of his physical condition. He could feel her ticking over the weary feeling in his chest, but eventually determining it to be nonthreatening if he ate and detoxed. Something else seeped in through their contact and the Doctor felt his memories beginning to resurface. Last night he had been gibbering like a mad baboon while the TARDIS had waited patiently on him. The sickness had come on so rapidly that they had both deduced it was a hyper mutated virus. The TARDIS had been moments away from calling Jack Harkness, but had been unwilling to risk exposing the immunocompromised Doctor.

He had a brief memory of the metal chamber and realized that she had temporarily torn out a piece of her own cooling ducts for him. She had sterilized it into within an inch of its life so as to not spread any bacteria into his lungs before blasting him. She had since replaced that part of her, but last night had led to some brief repercussions for her as well. The Time Lord was speechless.

After a moment of thinking about it, he found that he was disquieted. She reminded him that she could survive without cooling ducts and she had needed to keep his own more susceptible systems from overheating.

_I have to keep your bio computer running too_ , she reminded him.

He sighed. He offered her a grateful mental smile and she all but patted him on the head.

The End.


End file.
